Článek připomíná 110. výročí narození švýcarského katolického teologa a filosofa (metafyzika) Hanse Urse von Balthasara (1905 Luzern–1988 Basilej). Po studiích germanistiky ve Vídni, Berlíně a Curychu pokračoval ve studiu filosofie a teologie u jezuitů (E. Przywara, H. de Lubac). Před nadějnou akademickou dráhou dal přednost pastorační službě u studentů. V Basileji navázal úzké kontakty s K. Rahnerem a K. Barthem. S lékařkou a mystičkou Adriennou von Speyr založil sekulární institut Johannesgemeinschaft (1944) a nakladatelství, ve kterém vydával její díla. Roku 1950 (...) jezuitský řád opouští. Před druhým vatikánským koncilem vystupoval jako katolický progresivista, po něm jako kritik katolického modernismu, v němž viděl ohrožení biblických tradic. S Henri de Lubacem a Josephem Ratzingerem roku 1972 spoluzakládal mezinárodní katolickou revui Communio. Svou rozsáhlou a rozmanitou publikační činnost završil trilogií Herrlichkeit–Theodramatik–Theologik (1961–1987), v níž uvažuje o Bohu v estetických souvislostech, v kategoriích transcendentálií pravdy, dobra a jejich ztělesnění – krásy.The article recalls the 110th anniversary of the birth of the Swiss Catholic theologian and philosopher (metaphysician) Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905 Luzern–1988 Basel). He studied German in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich and after that he continued his studies in philosophy and theology at the Jesuits (E. Przywara, H. de Lubac). He preferred pastoral ministry among students to a promising academic career. In Basel he established close contacts with K. Rahner and K. Barth. Together with the doctor and mystic Adrienne von Speyr he founded the secular institute Johannesgemeinschaft (1944) and a publishing house, in which he published her work. In 1950 he left the Jesuit order. Before the Second Vatican Council he acted as a progressive Catholic, afterwards as a critic of Catholic modernism, in which he saw the threat of biblical traditions. With Henri de Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger in 1972 he co-founded the International Catholic review Communio. His extensive and diverse publications he completed with trilogy The Glory of the Lord–Theo-Drama–Theo-Logic (1961–1987), in which he contemplates God within aesthetic contexts, within categories of transcendentals truth, goodness and their embodiment – beauty. (shrink)

Morality and economic rationality: integrative economic ethics as the rational ethics of economic activity; Part II. Reflections on the Foundations of Economic ...

This compilation explores the significance of religion for the controversies stirred up by populist politics in European and American contexts, engaging Jewish, Christian, and Islamic political thought. Moving beyond essentialist definitions of religion, the contributions offer critical interpretations and constructive interventions for political theology today.

The present article revolves around the notion of universality and its relation to freedom and temporal orientation in contemporary political thought, with a focus on Susan Buck-Morss' notion of universality. The purpose is twofold. Firstly, I discern and critique the historico-political premises of her approach. Secondly, I suggest an alternative historico-political approach to universality addressing the drawbacks of her approach. I present three objections to her approach. Drawing on Arendt's distinction between liberation and the practice of freedom, I first present (...) a critique of the conceptualisation of freedom on which Buck-Morss' approach hinges, arguing that she overemphasises the moment of liberation. Thereafter, I turn to her reflections on historical orientation. My third objection concentrates on Buck-Morss' concept of universality. As a heuristic tool to expound on my critique, I activate the distinction between fictive and ideal universality as suggested by Étienne Balibar. I contend that Arendt's distinction between liberation and the practice of freedom efficiently elucidates the questions at stake in Balibar's discussion, as well as how his distinction points to the limits of Buck-Morss' argumentation. Ultimately, I contend that these critical remarks open up for a more dialectical approach to universality as a historical-political problem. (shrink)

This article investigates the prospect of giving de dicto- and de re-necessity a uniform treatment. The historical starting point is a puzzle raised by Aristotle's claim, advanced in one of the modal chapters of his Prior Analytics, that universally privative apodeictic premises simply convert. As regards the Prior and the Posterior Analytics, the data suggest a representation of propositions of the type in question by doubly modally qualified formulae of modal predicate logic that display a necessity operator in two distinct (...) positions. Can the N-operator occurring in these positions be given a unified semantical treatment (which would justify dispensing with a notational differentiation)? A positive answer, based on a suitably shaped truth condition for N-formulae, is given, and is supported in the final section with an alternative proof theoretically based conception of a property's essential belonging to an individual. (shrink)

Das Buch weist die Fruchtbarkeit einer strukturgenetisch fundierten Rekonstruktionsperspektive für die Analyse der historisch und kulturell differenten Weltbilder nach. Anhand der für die Geschichte der Denksysteme zentralen Vorstellungen über die Natur-Kultur-Differenz und die physikalische Kausalität werden Reichweite und Grenzen der These einer universalen Entwicklungslogik kritische geprüft. Die historischen Studien bieten dabei einen neuartigen Blick auf die Aristotelische Physik und ihre mittelalterlichen Fortentwicklungen. Schließlich werden die materialen Ergebnisse in Richtung einer differenztheoretisch orientierten Theorie der Entstehung des Neuen in der Entwicklung ausgedeutet.

Tento článek se zabývá problémem těžké volby při srovnávání dvou velmi odlišných alternativ. Takové srovnání můžeme akceptovat jako skutečné dilema, nebo odmítnout jako chybné posouzení, protože se srovnává něco nesrovnatelného. Ale co přesně namítáme, když někoho kritizujeme, že srovnává nesrovnatelné? Co vlastně znamená, když o někom řekneme, že srovnává jablka s hruškami? Ukážeme si, že hlavním zdrojem problému není skutečnost, že se srovnávají položky různého druhu, ale spíše potřeba zohledňovat relevantní kontexty. Náročnost porovnání je úzce svázána s náročností jeho zdůvodnění. (...) Skutečnost, že se srovnává nesrovnatelné, se pak projevuje ve vadách takového zdůvodnění. Zejména v tom, že se nedostává uspokojivá odpověď na praktické otázky, proč se v daném kontextu porovnávají zrovna tyto dvě položky, proč se zde porovnávají podle tohoto a ne jiného kritéria a co z takového porovnávání pro tento kontext vlastně vyplývá. Problém srovnávání nesrovnatelného bude ilustrován na příkladech z estetiky, etiky a teorie práva. This article deals with the hard choice when comparing two very different alternatives. Such a comparison can be accepted as a true dilemma or it can be rejected as a wrong evaluation because it is compared something incomparable. But what exactly do we object to by criticizing someone for comparing the incomparable? What does it mean to say that someone compares apples with oranges? I will show that the main source of the problem is not the fact that items of different kinds are compared, but rather the need to take into account relevant contexts. The difficulty of comparison is closely linked to the hardness of its justification. The fact that it is comparing the incomparable is then reflected in the defects of such a justification. Especially in the absence of a satisfactory answer to the practical questions why just these two items are compared in the given context, why they are compared here according to this and not another criterion, and what follows from such a comparison for this context. The problem of comparing the incomparable will be illustrated by examples drawn from aesthetics, ethics and legal theory. (shrink)

Als eine wesentliche Schwäche des strukturalistischen Theorienkonzepts musste die Vagheit erscheinen, mit der die Unterscheidung zwischen bezüglich einer Theorie theoretischen und nichttheoretischen Funktionen bisher belastet war. In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wird ein formal präzises, pragmatisch nichtrelativiertes Kriterium für T-Theoretizität vorgestellt. Erste Schritte zur Klärung seiner Bedeutung für die holistische Sichtweise erfahrungswissenschaftlicher Theorien werden unternommen.

ABSTRACT We exist only because we inhabit a world in common, embedded within networks of associations between humans and nonhumans. This is endlessly disclosed by our experience of the world. And yet, despite its palpability, it is clear that we have failed to mobilize a notion of the common world into something capable of guiding our modes of thought and collective forms of activity—our attitudes, our affective lives, our politics. How have we arrived here? Bruno Latour's work suggests that an (...) answer can be found in the common world's status as information—its self-evidence works to exclude it from a world of values. What, then, should be done? In his recent work on the modes of existence Latour develops a pragmatic metaphysics inspired by the speculative method of Alfred North Whitehead. Metaphysical speculation becomes a tool for moving beyond the “bifurcation of nature” through the construction of abstractions with which to interpret the pluralism of experience. Rather than thinking of the common world as either a given fact or as a totalizing universal, Latour develops a notion of a common world out of the messiness of experience and, as such, hopes to transform us into beings who would be moved to actively pursue and care for such a notion. (shrink)

By assembling authors with a wide range of different disciplinary backgrounds, from philosophy, literature, political science, sociology to medical anthropology ...

This article introduces the Special Issue on cameraless photography and the translation of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s treatise on electrical figures. It summarizes previous discussions on cameraless photography, namely those by Geoffrey Batchen and suggests relating the photogram to current post-lenticular technologies such as radiography, digital scanning or machine vision. It outlines the emergence of cameraless imaging in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century scientific research, taking Lichtenberg’s figures as an emblem of automatically generated images situated between duration and instantaneity, between image (...) making and measurement, between nature and culture. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to show that the structuralist approachprovides a powerful framework for the analysis of certain holistic phenomena in empirical theories.We focus on two aspects of holism. The first refers to the involvement of comprehensive complexes of hypothesesin the theoretical treatment of systems regarded in isolation. By contrast, the second refers to thecorrelation between the theoretical descriptions of different systems. It is demonstrated how these two aspectscan be analysed by making use of the structuralist notion of (...) theory-nets, and how they are reflected by a refinedversion of the Ramsey sentence. Furthermore, it is argued that there exists a tight correlation between theoccurrence of these two holistic phenomena, a specific form of underdetermination of terms which occur in thefundamental principles of an empirical theory, and the shaping of the theory's protective belt. After having dealtwith these questions in abstracto, the relevance of these considerations for a better understanding of the dynamicsof empirical theories is demonstrated in a concrete case study. It refers to the role holistic phenomenaplayed in the investigation of the anomalous advance of Mercury's perihelion and in the various attempts to eliminate this anomaly. (shrink)

According to Ted Nannicelli, ethical disputes about art today often concern not the controversial attitudes expressed by the works but the ways in which they have been created, that is, as well as interpretation-oriented ethical criticism of art, we find production-oriented ethical criticism. The main question that I explore in this article is: are the interpretation- and production-oriented approaches to ethical art criticism essentially disconnected or can there be a connection between them? I argue that in the disjunctivist view, the (...) two approaches are disconnected, for ethical flaws in the production of artworks are never conditioned by ethical flaws in the attitudes expressed by those works and vice versa. I show that disjunctivism is mistaken and defend what I call contextual conjunctivism. In this view, the two approaches can be connected since attitudinal ethical flaws in artworks can indeed cause ethical flaws in their production and vice versa depending on context. I support this view using several examples of controversies about contemporary art. (shrink)

In this new book, Ulrich Beck develops his now widely used concepts of second modernity, risk society and reflexive sociology into a radical new sociological ...

This paper addresses Arthur Danto’s claim that contemporary artworks, such as Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box, do not differ perceptually from ordinary objects, and that in order to see contemporary artworks as art the viewer has to move from mere experience to a meaning expressed by the work. I propose to supplement Danto’s thesis. I argue that, while some contemporary artworks may indeed be perceptually indistinguishable from ordinary objects, these works are distinguishable not only by means of meaning but also by (...) means of a non-perceptual aesthetic experience. I then discuss two theories that might provide a model of such an aesthetic experience. First, I focus on James Shelley’s theory of non-perceptual aesthetic experience conceived as a representation of non-perceptual aesthetic properties. Second, I discuss Jérôme Dokic’s adverbialist theory, which sees aesthetic experience as a combination of non-aesthetic attitudes. I argue that the adverbialist model is the most promising candidate for solving our problem. The model must be extended, however, if it is to account for pragmatic attitudes in response to artworks. (shrink)

In the following article, we propose an analytical framework for the analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Standards based on the paradigmatic nexus of voice and entitlement. We follow the theory of decentration and present the concept of Transnational Norm-Building Networks (TNNs), which — as we argue — comprise a new nexus of voice and entitlement beyond the nation—state level. Furthermore, we apply the analytical framework to the ISO 26000 initiative and the Global Compact. We conclude the article with remarks (...) on the legitimacy and the effectiveness of norms generated by TNNs. Through this, we aim to contribute a new theoretical foundation to the analysis of CSR standards, which enables us to undertake a more differentiated description of TNN structures which have hitherto been ignored in academic literature. Secondly, we will contribute to the practical debate on ISO 26000 and the Global Compact by proposing new perspectives on the conditions of their legitimacy and effectiveness based on the voice-entitlement nexus. (shrink)

This study was designed to survey the extent to which private companies in Sweden take structural measures within the field of business ethics: Codes of Ethics; Ethics Committees; Ethics Officers and Ethics Training. This was done in two steps. Through a nation-wide telephone survey, a population of "active" companies were identified. These companies received a questionnaire with detailed questions regarding the design, usage and effects of these measures. The percentage of active companies were found to be a high 46%. National (...) and industry characteristics are proposed as explanatory factors. (shrink)

Eine tragfähige affektive Beziehung wird als Grundlage für reflexive kooperative Prozesse in der psychoanalytisch orientierten Therapie erachtet. Was ist die Essenz dieser affektiven Bindung (des Attachments)? Es werden zwei bildhafte Konzepte entwickelt: das affektive Feld und die Trajektorie. Letztere ist als ein Weg der affektiven Information zwischen den Protagonisten gezeichnet. Jedes Selbst hat ein affektives Feld. Die Felder zwischen zwei Selbsten werden verknüpft, jedoch nicht im Sinne der Feldtheorie, die eine eigen­ständige Entwicklung eines gemeinsamen Feldes postuliert. In einem wissenschaftstheoretischen Exkurs (...) werden die Ansätze »Feld« und »two singles« als gleichwertige Möglichkeiten diskutiert, Intersubjektivität zu verstehen. Die affektive Beziehung entwickelt sich zunächst zu den beiden Funktionen der resonanten und der responsiven Relation, um dann zunehmend durch die kognitive überlagert zu werden. Affektive Kommunikation ist nicht identisch mit der affektiven Bindung. Es werden Störungen im Bereich der Psychosen und Formen früher Störungen beschrieben. Die Ergebnisse der Bindungsforschung sind bekannt, spielen aber in dieser klinisch ausgerichteten Arbeit nur hintergründig eine Rolle. (shrink)